By Nick Smith
What are your goals, in your life, your career, with your family? Are they focused on making it through the day and providing for your loved ones, or do you have a bold five-year plan?
Without goals – results that we can work towards – we risk wandering through life, surviving rather than purposefully building on our work and life choices. With too many, we can become overwhelmed, busy finishing projects without making any long-term progress. Either way, we often end up working harder, not smarter.
In March, I spent a morning considering my goals and where they would lead me, thanks to Emerald Coast Filmmakers. ECF is an organization created to connect and help local actors and crew. It’s the brainchild of Christine York, co-founder and Creative Director of Vivid Bridge Studios in Pensacola.
During my two years as an ECF committee member, the group has offered roundtables, meet-and-greets, interviews and Pensacon panels.
ECF’s latest initiative was a workshop called “Goal Setting for Freelancers.” Although our focus was on film, all of what was taught applies to any kind of freelance work. Christine led the workshop via Zoom, leading us through a workbook of things-to-do. We broke out into small groups in virtual rooms, discussing deep questions like, “what does success feel like?” as well as more specific ones about skills and marketing. Christine explained that understanding ourselves and our community was a key to being intentional in our goal-setting, whether short term (finishing a project) or long term (building a business).
As we talked about what success looked and felt like to us, we decided it involved more than fortune and glory. For me, success could also be measured by gaining respect, being acknowledged for years of hard work and creativity, and gaining a sense of contentment.
Participant Mason Guttery’s ultimate goal was to provide his household with a certain level of comfort and security, while also being able to wake up every day with a task to tackle. Kalvo Griffin, another attendant, wanted recognition and self-fulfillment.
There is no golden formula for achieving your goals but a helpful method is to break them into time-sensitive steps. What can you achieve in a week, a month or a quarter? Who will guide you, help you or hire you? By answering those questions and focusing on one stage at a time, you avoid losing steam and maintain accountability.
I found the workshop very worthwhile, not just because of the workbook and discussions, but also thanks to the encouragement Christine and the participants gave each other. ECF has been asked to do more, and longer, sessions in the future. Our plan is to create courses that will help filmmakers of all levels, because however many projects you complete there are always more skills to learn.
You can find the Emerald Coast Filmmakers page on Facebook and we have group there too, so if you want to know more about making movies please reach out to us, so we can help you achieve your goals.
